My first valet job, part time in college. I was a few months into the job and felt confident.

Down the lane, I could see the headlights of an exotic car. I stood at attention, ready to take the car. As it came closer, I saw it was a Ferrari 308. I had never driven a Ferrari before!

I greeted the owner and settled into the car. I took it very easy with the clutch, trying my hardest not to stall it. The clutches on these old Italian exotics were tricky, or so I heard.

I kept slipping the clutch, and felt the engine load up, but the car wouldn’t budge. I had only every driven stick shift my entire life. What could I possibly be doing wrong with this simple task?

The owner was watching. He opened the door and advised the handbrake was still engaged. On this Ferrari 308, the handbrake was between the seat and the door. When engaged, it laid flat instead of sticking up like every other handbrake I’d encountered. Tricky! I finally got the car underway and made it to the other side of the valet stand.

Without explicit direction, it was understood by everyone that I would park this car directly up front.

I angled the car and prepared to reverse. Still frazzled by the handbrake incident, I nudged the shifter over and towards reverse. GRRRIND! Oh, please, no! I nudged it again. GRRRIND! I nudged it a 3rd time, thinking the shifter had to first be pushed down like some European cars. GRRRIND!

The customer was still there, watching everything. Cringing. My manager, who also watched the entire thing, opened the door and calmly took over.

It was over 10 years ago and I still feel like a dumbass thinking about it.

I worked for a valet for two years and the weirdest thing that ever happened was when my two coworkers and I watched a car get stolen, and did absolutely nothing about it.

So we had a small lot next to the restaurant that we share with the employees that we could watch from our stand. There are usually some cars parked there before we arrive before dinner, and that day there was a gold Subaru Legacy, among others. Anyway, this guy comes up and through a thick accent asks “Do you know where my car is?” After first not understanding the question, we confusedly tell the guy that we just set up and haven’t parked any cars yet. So he walks off and we get back to throwing stuff at each other because valets are idiots. About two minutes later we see the same guy come back. Curiously, we watch him stroll right into the lot, unlock this Subaru with the fob, get in, start it up, and drive away. Weird, but we figure the guy must have forgotten where he parked.

Thirty minutes later, a young man I later learn to be the owner’s son comes up to us and asks us where his gold Subaru Legacy is. “Somebody drove that right out of the lot,” I responded. After reassuring him that there were no other gold Subaru Legacies in our lot and a quick check of the restaurant’s cameras, we realize that this guy lifted the keys from his coat pocket, searched around for the car, and once he found it proceeded to drive (as we later found out) all the way to Denver. Despite that long trip, the car was recovered without damage. Next time he came back he let us keep track of his keys.

This was the first time I ever valet’d my car and it got stolen. Twice.

It was probably right around 10 years ago a friend of mine was getting married downtown, at the kind of place that doesn’t have any real street or lot parking except for the reserved “valet” lot, so your only real choice was to valet or take your chance parking a great deal away.

The steak was awesome, the night was great and around 11pm as the reception was wrapping up and the party was going to move to the brewery down the street, the valet stumbled into the reception bloodied up. He had been pistol whipped and robbed of ALL of the keys for the entire wedding party, and being there were four of them, they stole four cars. One of them was my 2 year-ish old Pontiac G6.

This was the second time my car had been stolen so I handled it like I did the last time: tried to get a drink. They wouldn’t serve me, the entire place is going apeshit, people trying to figure out what to do without keys and the few people that did have keys (for some reason or another) were gathering up loads of people to take to common destinations. I was headed about an hour out and a nice family I didn’t know offered to drop me off since they were headed the same way.

About a hundred feet out of the lot on the way back they got rear ended in a hit and run.

They dropped me off, and not being totally lucid I didn’t realize I didn’t have my keys (duh), couldn’t get a hold of my roommates so I slept on the sidewalk.

Fast forward a few days when the four people who had cars stolen were being told everything was being done, and I believed them: the four thiefs stole the four cars, dumped three of them, went joyriding in the fourth, totaled it, carjacked an off duty police office and shot him (not fatally).

They caught the four guys a few days later and recovered three of the four cars. When the cops told me they found the guys but not my car, I asked “Did you ask them where it is?” which apparently isn’t funny. The location the guys gave didn’t have my car, so I had to wait 30 days from the theft for insurance to write it off as a total loss.

30 days later I’m on a lot about to purchase another G6 when I call the insurance to make sure I’m in the clear and they tell me, “Oh, they found it a couple days ago!”

Thanks assholes!

So I have to go through this whole shitshow to get it from the impound where it does not have: wheels, a battery, a drive side window, or an in tact steering column. However, my golf clubs were still there, but they took my bowling ball out of the bag and left the shoes. Thanks.

Busted window, busted steering column... someone stole my car from wherever the thiefs left it (they had the keys from the valet). Awesome. I had it repaired, drove it to the dealership to terminate the lease early and moved on.

Had no choice but to valet park my 2005 Mazda RX-8 at a fancy hotel. I warned the Valet that if the engine got cold, he’d have to warm it up again before shutting it off lest it flood. Sure enough, got a call hours later (while sleeping) that they were trying to shuffle my car around for space, but it wouldn’t start. Having warned them, I was mad, and told them tough luck...I’d come down and de-flood it in the morning.

To their credit, one of the cooks at the hotel happened to be a rotary enthusiast, and de-flooded it sometime during the night shift, so the car was ready to go and running smoothly when I checked out the next morning.

First let me say that I hate using valet services, so much so that I have been known to street park my car just to avoid using them. Unfortunately there is one specific situation where I often have no choice. If I am running late for work then I drive to Secaucus Junction to park and take the train into the city. If you are not familiar with the parking situation at Secaucus, if you show up after about 8:15, the self-parking lot will be full, and you will have to valet. There is also exactly nowhere else to park in the area, so you are stuck using the pay lot.

So one day I am running behind, I drive to Secaucus and valet my mildly beat-up 99 V6 Camaro. I see it getting slotted in with all of the other commuters’ cars, and I move on with my day. After a full day of work, I get back to the lot to find my car no longer parked in the mass of cars, but right up front near the building where you pay and retrieve your car. Strange. I get my ticket, pay for the parking, and wait for my number to come up. After a minute, a guy comes over and asks “which car is yours?”, and I point out through the glass at my car sitting 10 feet away. “Oh, the Camaro... I think the keys are probably in it.”

I’m a little bit frustrated now. Ok, my car is a little bit trailer-park-paradise, but that doesn’t mean you should just leave it around unlocked with the keys in it in an NYC metro area parking lot. Whatever. I get in, sure enough the keys are in it. I fire it up (cold engine: it’s been sitting around with the keys in it for a while), but then I notice something: a big, greasy handprint on the inside of the passenger window. Now to understand the significance of this, you need to know some things about my car: (1) the passenger door is hard to push open (misalignment, but you get used to it), and (2) it doesn’t matter, because my wife hates my car so nobody ever rides in the passenger seat. Ever.

The most likely scenario in my mind is that a couple of the fine parking professionals there decided to take my car to lunch (probably thinking it was fast.... it’s a hugger orange Camaro on BMW style 42 17's, so it looks the part, but were disappointed by 200hp of V6 fury when they actually got out of the parking lot), and the greasy-handed passenger pushed on the window trying to get the door open. That was the last time I went there. I’d rather be late.

I stayed at hotel in Providence that required you to valet. Although my car made it through just fine, while I was waiting to get my car one morning I got to witness a shit show involving a fairly gnarly sounding mini cooper and a valet that apparently A, couldn’t quite figure out the clutch and B, didn’t know how to back up using mirrors. The cooper’s back window was completely blacked out. The valet exited the garage and pulled into the circle in front of the entrance. He stalled the car three times trying to get it backed in. The curbing was quite tall... The car was that perfect height in the back where it just barely didn’t clear the curb. While the valet backed the car over the curb, the worst scraping noise could be heard. And I swear the car actually lifted off the suspension a good bit before the valet shut it off.

Valet gets out, and immediately notices he’s put the car ON the curbing. Gets back in. Stalls the car 2 more times before getting the car off the curb. About a minute later a younger gentleman strolls out the door and picks up his keys from the valet stand. Not to stereotype but I pretty much knew the Cooper was his... Nobody says a word to him, and lets him walk to his car. He gets in and starts it up and the whole time I’m thinking, no one said shit to this guy about his bumper! I started to get that nervous feeling knowing that I was going to have to be the narc and speak up. In order for the cooper to exit the circle, he had to drive past where I was standing. I waived him over to me. He rolled the window down and I basically laid out what I had witnessed before he came out.

I sort of stepped away at that point... He got out, looked at his rear bumper and then yelled “fuck” loud enough that people inside the lobby stopped to see what was happening. I have no idea if the Hotel took care of the guy cause I got the F out of there before the rest of the eruption took off.

Like I get it, shit happens. The valet didn’t screw the guys bumper up on purpose. But for fuck sake, own it.

Former HR Manager/Claims for a valet company, here’s some claims I had to handle that our valets managed to land us:

1. DMC (Detroit Medical Center), had the fiberglass roof sheared off of conversion vans because staff did not pay attention and went into the parking garage when there was a 6ft ceiling. Usually, these vehicles belonged to handicapped individuals/families so it was a shitstorm when it happened. (Are we still there, probably not since they decided to unionize at DMC)

2. Staff rearending other vehicles because they did not understand how to use hand controls on the steering wheel.

3. Valet fired for: stealing food from hospital refrigerator and offering to other valets. If he was not tipped, he would keep turning the ignition while the vehicle was on and if it was a manual, purposely rev or ride the clutch.

4. Minivan stolen from DMC because valet gave keys to somebody without a ticket. Vehicle was found later undamaged but with trash in it and crack in the back of the minivan.

5. Car caught fire after being parked at hotel. We didn’t bite for that one but it did happen.

6. Man called saying we stole his watermelon after he used our valet services. Turns out the watermelon rolled under the backseat.

7. Burnt clutch on a 911 Turbo, owner of company tried to get us to deny the claim but it turned out it was his friend, so the owner reneged and got the clutch replaced.

8. Feel good story: Cancer patient had vehicle damaged by valet, she sent us three estimates. Company policy was to go with the lowest estimate and send them a check. Claimant calls, says she realized the cheapest one does terrible work and wanted a different estimate. I advised her to go somewhere that you know is expensive so the shop you want looks cheap. Tore up the third estimate and waited for new one, feel good moment of the day.

I’ve never had an issue with valets since I’ve only used them a couple of times, so I’ll relate an incident where I suddenly became a valet.

In high school, I was a receptionist at a retirement home. It was a pretty cushy job as far as high school jobs go, in that I only had to answer the phone and help direct visitors that came in. Most residents didn’t drive anyway, so there was no point in having a valet service.

One afternoon, there was a memorial service for the one of the residents, which meant lots of people were coming in from out of town. About 15 minutes into the service, a lady comes in clearly distraught that she was late, slapped her keys on the table, and asked for directions to the service. I pointed her in the right direction, and she raced off without a backwards glance.

Surprised, I looked down at the keys: Mercedes. I then looked at the front glass doors: a brand new Mercedes S500.

I was in a dilemma. It was blocking the entryway to the complex, something that was verboten for safety reasons, so the car had to move. However, I was 15 at the time, and had only recently gotten my learners permit. I called around, but none of the other staff were available, so I took the keys, hopped in the car, and drove it off. I found a visitor spot not far from the entrance, thankfully, as it was pretty intimating driving such a big, expensive car when I’d never driven on my own before. Thankfully, I got it parked without a hitch.

After the service the lady retrieved her keys and gave me $20 for being so helpful. So, not only was my first solo drive a brand new Mercedes, I also made an extra $20 that day (no small sum when you make $7/hr).

Was teenager. Had SHO. Back when SHO was cool. Valet parked it at a garage, went to a three-hour-long dinner, at a restaurant with a convenient view of the street. During dinner, see what appears to be a twin of my SHO gunning the engine and attempting street-racing. In fact, looked uncannily like my SHO, but couldn’t be totally sure without seeing the plates, which I didn’t see.

After long dinner, back to the car. Radio station presets are changed. A few weeks later, get the cellphone bill — yes, this was the nineties, with car-installed phones — they had made $500 of calls during their time with the car.

That was the last time I ever allowed my own car to be valet parked. Rental cars, sure, have at it. In some desperate situations with no non-valet option, I’ve tipped the valet to let me drive the car to the valet parking garage myself and keep the keys myself.

In the mid 00's, I was working the opening shift for Hertz in Austin, TX when it became apparent that the Hyatt downtown had some issues.

It started out with the early morning valets not verifying the claim tickets and giving the wrong cars to the wrong renters. Certainly a problem, but hey, a Taurus is a Taurus and those great big gold key tags in the shape of a #1 do tend to look the same. It was a pain in the ass with lots of calling renters and vehicle swaps, but I was not making that $.50/hour shift differential for nothing, right?

Then these clowns started mixing up the rental companies. Oh, you rented a white Mustang from Hertz last night? Well, how about you drive this nice white 2 door Alero from Avis this morning! Fun! Honestly though, most of the “road warrior” business renters are in and out of different cars, hotels and cities that THEY tend to lose track of what they rented. These were fun because sometimes the customers were not returning them to the same city, and surprisingly were upset when they were asked to return and swap cars out for the correct one! But hey, at least these were over my pay-grade, so there’s that.

The absolute worst (best?) came one morning at 5am on the nose, when the front desk manager called asking for information regarding a guy who had just picked up his (our?) Town Car from the Valet. He was worked up considerably more than the other times we had had played out early morning game of shuffle the cars, so I was intrigued at his consternation and asked him what happened (by this point the station managers were OVER dealing with this ongoing situation and bounced this fun ball right back into my corner).

.It turned out that our renter had called down for his TC roughly the same time a little elderly couple had called for their Lincoln. Well, the renter got downstairs just as one of the valets was pulling up in the old folk’s Town House, and of course he just hopped in and took off. The nice little old folks had taken a leisurely time getting to the valet stand and were greeted by a considerably newer, cleaner, but definitely-not-their Town Car.

The manager had been frantically calling the renter’s cellphone to get him to come back and exchange cars with no luck. I was kinda bored and figured WTF, I’ll give it a shot so I started calling the numbers I had for him. Cell went straight to VM, he obviously was not in his office so that was out, so I called his home number. A West Coast home number. At 5:30am, or 3:30 L.A. time as his lovely wife gently reminded me when she picked up.

So grandpa and grandma were stuck at the hotel enjoying what I am assuming was a complimentary breakfast while our customer was driving their personal car like he had just stolen it (which I guess technically he did?).

A couple of hours later I got a phone call from a bewildered station manager at the DFW airport location asking me if anyone knew anything about the situation, so naturally I took the call. Our guy had basically set a land speed record for a Austin to Dallas run up I-35, not noticing that the particular Town Car he was driving had a cloth instead of leather interior, tinted windows and a box of tissues sitting on the rear parcel shelf. He had even stopped to re-fuel it and it was not until he was denied access to the return lot did he realize that he was in the wrong car, much less someone’s POV! He had lost his phone charger and his cell was dead so had no clue that quite possibly everyone in the free world had been trying to reach him. (The Dallas location was kind enough to give him a new one out of the lost and found storage room, so his day was not a total loss!) We were all at a loss as to what to do as far as billing was concerned-I mean we had our car, it was driven less than 10 miles-so our manager ended up zeroing the charges on the contract.

I heard that the hotel made arrangements to have the car towed back to the hotel. The hotel was lucky it was a kindly old couple, because if it was me, I would have been flown home and then taken straight to the Lincoln dealership to pick up my new Town Car.

After that all the confusion stopped and I never found out what caused it.

Car was stolen in SF from a Valet that I used weekly. Im not saying that the poor 19 year old kid was at fault... but it did get stolen while in the possession of a valet, which makes it my worst valet story.

My car was stolen at gunpoint from a valet; thats my worst story.

When the car was recovered, it had been used in two other crimes that day. Was in multiple accidents, and was totally trashed!

When the bill to replace the interior, rear suspension, left side of the car. Front end, and drivers side front end, plus pull the engine to figure out the rough idle passed the 31K mark... my insurance company totalled it out.

So here is an interesting one. Went on a road trip, decided to treat myself to a nicer (for my 20 year old ass at the time) hotel. Paid around $200 for the night. I had a manual 2008 Mazda3 GT sedan at the time, which was identical to the one in the picture. Not a bad car by any means, but far from spectacular.

So I get to the hotel, valet it in, then go out for supper with the car. When I came back, same valet is walking towards me, says hi, I hand him the key, he gives me the ticket. I always take note of the mileage when I valet, so I’m not worried.

The next morning, as I get to my car, I notice there is 550km (340mi) more on the odometer. My seat is in the correct position, my mirrors are good, the car is clean, and the gas is exactly where I left it, if not a touch more. So I go see the guy, take him aside, and ask what the fuck is going on.

Turns out he had a new girlfriend in a city 1h45 away, and his car was in the garage. He thought I wouldn’t notice the mileage, put the gas back where it was, and that he was sorry. He begged me not to get him fired, and as strange as it seems, I had a good vibe about this guy. I didn’t know what to do, and then he said “I’ll pay you for it. How does $300 sound?”.

I was a valet once upon a time at a hotel while I was in college. One of my duties was also shuttle driver. This wouldn’t be so bad except the shuttle was a 15 y.o. full size ford van with seating for ~11 that hadn’t been maintained. Oh, it was a 2wd in a ski resort town where the average snow fall on the mountain was north of 300 inches per year. Oh, it also shaked like hell above 50, needed brakes, burnt oil and everything else from years of skipping maintenance.

One night while I was working I had a pick up of about 15 people that had a reservation in the restaurant. It was up a steep hill, lots of winding streets with a driveway that dropped precipitously down to the house where the people waited. Lots of sliding and fish tailing occurred while making my way up the hill. I grew up without traction control and lots of snow in the winter. So while this is manageable and great fun, it doesn’t scream high end resort professionalism.

I back the van down to the house knowing I would need a running start to get out. Fill up with people for my first trip.

First attempt, I was gentle with the throttle. I was trying to not slide around 8 slightly inebriated guests.

Second attempt, I tell everyone to hang on, the van might slide around a bit. This was a young crowd and they cheered at this possibility. Running start, tires sliding, no stopping, praying no traffic was oncoming. Van comes up and out of the driveway onto the street, predictably the back end comes around. I have to hold it and rotate the van full of people pretty far to avoid tagging the snow bank lining the road. No such luck as I hear/feel the bumper scraping the snowbank. The people are roaring, thinking this is all good fun.

When I drop them off, I am told a family is waiting in the cold with a sick little girl. 15 minutes there and back, I can squeeze the family in. I pick up the family and the little girl is white. She is not having a good time. I driving as slowly as I can go while still not getting stuck and trying to drive quickly. We are approaching the hotel and the girl is looking worse. She says she might throw up. Her mother is holding here, we are both saying hold one just one more minute, we are almost back. The mother and the little girl are seated in the passenger seat next to me.

As we come through the hotel gates, not 150' from the door. Literally less than 30 seconds from being stopped and standing on the sidewalk, the little girl loses it. Chunks everywhere. Mom, daughter, window, seat, carpet, it is all covered.

We stop, get her outside, and the family goes in.

I spent the rest of my shift trying to clean the van as best I could. At the end of the night it still reaked like puke but I had to park it with the windows up, locked in a heated garage. I left a note saying not to drive the van.

I get in the next day, the other valet had not seen the note and taken a guest somewhere. It was worse the second day. That van had a wretched smell until the end of the season. They replaced it with a new Suburban.

The place closed, we messed around an extra 20 minutes. We go to pick up the car, and they are gone. the car was still parked, but no one. We find the phone number, call them and they say they’ll be back in two days. We give them hell and ask they show up right away ( it was a rental car and we didn’t have second key). To which they hung up.

a very random and quite intoxicated dude shows up, tries to help us. We move as far from him as possible.

Eventually, we do the pragmatic thing and break into the tiny valet office, and steal our own key which was in a drawer.